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By Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. Some technical “writing†jobs are actually editing assignments. There are a lot of documents written in “legalese†or suffer from “engineeringitis†out there. Converting them to clear easy-to-understand English is no small feat. It’s a great public service in every sense of the term.

Bullet Points Third-party personnel recruiters work with companies that are searching for one or more employees. Third-party recruiters work on a commission basis, with the commission typically amounting to about 20 to 25 percent of the employee’s first-year salary.

Many technical writers, content managers and information architects work on software development teams, or at least tangentially to them. You may have heard of Google’s Summer of Code or BarCamp or PodCamp and wondered, like Janet Swisher did at A Techie Tech Writer, why aren’t there more free real-life community events for technical writers?

Many technical writers, content managers and information architects work on software development teams, or at least tangentially to them. You may have heard of Google’s Summer of Code or BarCamp or PodCamp and wondered, like Janet Swisher did at A Techie Tech Writer, why aren’t there more free real-life community events for technical writers?

I’m pretty busy with my new job this week, so this is just a quick post - but hopefully a fun one. I wanted to write a You know you’re a technical writer… list, but I’m low on innovation and humour at the moment.

Bullet Points Megacorporation is a term popularized by the cyberpunk novels of William Gibson. It denotes a multi-national corporation that has become so large that in many cases it is its own customer or even its own government. Megacorporations often come complete with their own military.

By Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. A reader has recently asked how long it takes “on the average†to write a technical manual. This is as fascinating and complicated a question as “how long does it take on the average to finish a building?†The number of variables that determine the answer is mind boggling.

Good technical documentation comes from good information. Finding, understanding and explaining information is the job of the technical writer. There are many methods technical writers use to gather the information they need. This series will cover some of those methods.

A few weeks ago I started experimenting with surveys in my sidebar, mostly informal, and mainly to try out different WordPress plugins. Little did I know my surveys would incite so much controversy. The latest poll, “Which Authoring Tool Is Best for You?†has received nearly 600 votes from people around the world, and was discussed at length on the HATT listserv.

A few weeks ago I started experimenting with surveys in my sidebar, mostly informal, and mainly to try out different WordPress plugins. Little did I know my surveys would incite so much controversy. The latest poll, “Which Authoring Tool Is Best for You?†has received nearly 600 votes from people around the world, and was discussed at length on the HATT listserv.